Home to a tech-savvy population, South Korea is expected to see nearly one-third of its smartphone users making mobile payments this year, according to a report released Tuesday by global market analytics firm eMarketer.

According to the report, around 31.9 percent of smartphone users in South Korea will use their phones to pay for goods or services at a point of sale -- the “cash register” where a retail transaction is completed -- in 2018.

A proximity mobile payment is defined as a transaction made at a physical point of sale by using a mobile device, including scanning, tapping, swiping or checking in with a mobile device, eMarketer said.

Korea’s proximity mobile payment user rate will also rank second in the Asia-Pacific region in 2018, trailing behind only China (77.5 percent), where Alipay is widely used, it added.

The market research firm credited Korea’s quick adoption of mobile payments to its high smartphone user penetration rate -- fourth in the world -- and its population’s openness to new technologies.


Korea has traditionally been an early adopter of new technologies including in-store mobile payments that debuted here between 2012 and 2013. The adoption of mobile payments took off when Samsung Pay was launched in 2015.

As adoption continues to grow, eMarketer expects 39.5 percent of smartphone users in Korea to pay with their mobile devices at a point of sale.

“South Korea’s smartphone-savvy population are accepting the big pushes made by companies to bring in-store mobile payments to the masses,” said Christopher Bendtsen, senior forecasting analyst at eMarketer.

“Adoption is far from mainstream right now, but competition between Samsung Pay, Android Pay, LG Pay and more will continue to drive growth. We expect user penetration to reach just over a quarter of the population by the end of this year, one of the highest in the world.”

Samsung Pay currently dominates Korea’s local proximity mobile payment market, largely because most of the population uses Samsung Electronics’ smartphones, the newest models of which come with Samsung Pay built into them.

Samsung Pay is a simplified mobile payment service that lets users pay by placing their smartphone -- on which a credit card can be registered -- near a contactless card reader. It uses both near field communication and magnetic secure transmission to transmit payment information between the phone and the payment terminal.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)